Wind whistled through her mane and grappled her feathers with frozen teeth. She was outside.
Her breath coiled around her nose in minuscule clouds that her speed quickly disrupted and destroyed. She was outside.
Blue eyes scoured the abysmal terrain the apocalypse had awarded the top level, its expanse a vastness of grey laid upon grey. She was outside.

Why the fuck was she outside?

Breaths ran dry over a winter worn throat as Ampere took in the chaotic unraveling of this once beautiful world she'd tried to call home. It was worse than she'd even imagined. Not only was everyone milling around in the dark, growing too comfortable in the dwelling of rabbits and rats, but their previous houses had become this wasteland of ash and smoke, burned by a darkness that gave no heat or light. Everyone was waiting for a savior, failing to recognizing the strength in their own bones.

Ampere fought back tears, gritting her teeth and shaking away the haunting image of what happened to her last time she ventured beyond the threshold of the "sanctuary". She loathed that place more than ever now. It was not a safe house as everyone thought, as she had been led to believe. It was their prison, their tomb, and they were all stupid enough to walk in there with a will and a smile.

She would not let fear depict her future any longer.

She was about to turn back, knowing now more than ever that she needed to rally everyone to resist this before it was too late to turn it back, assuming ti wasn't already. As fired up as she was Ampere also know she couldn't do this alone.
Alone.

That was part of the reason she'd come out here. She still hadn't seen Mesec. Against her better judgement, pushed to the brink in part from a rising madness born of grounded confinement, Ampere had decided to go looking for him. A foolish notion considering he was one horse among a whole realm fraught with danger, but she'd thought he might be here in what was the remnants of the Foothills, his once home. What she saw was neither Mesec nor hope, but it was fuel, one that would set her ablaze with action and fury until they reclaimed this land.

But not now, not alone.

She was just turning back, finally dispersing the haze of her thoughts so clarity could return and with it the sensibility that this was a suicide mission, but that's when she heard a voice. It sounded small and confused, like someone lost. Ampere paused, knowing the wraiths entertained speech to lure and trap the healthy, but this voice seemed too real. For a moment Ampere struggled, warring within herself over what was rational and what was right.

She descended, part of her kicking and screaming against the choice, but the other part of her set with resolve. She was already out here, she could not abandon this soul like everyone had done these lands.

"What are you doing here?" came her voice as she flew over the speckled girl, landing easily beside her, the fog and the dust of decay swirling in her flight wind. She turned towards her, blue eyes wide with disbelief and rimmed with a perceptible fright, though there was relief too that this was not one infected - at least not so far as she could tell.

"You should not be here!" Ampere exclaimed, going towards her quickly, all the while her gaze and ears probing all around them, searching for the monsters. "You must GO!"

Ampere

With all that had occurred lately there should not have been anything left to surprise Ampere, but the mare's words did the trick. Disbelief at once had Ampere clack-jaw, her words stunned into silence for a moment before she was able to regain some modicum of composure by shaking her head. The motion rattled her brain, synopses firing off once more. "In the Sanctuary," Ampere replied incredulously, all the while wondering just where this mare had been the whole time while managing to stay healthy.

"Everywhere has been overrun by the sickness, it's a wonder you don't have it," she offered as more explanation, all the while continuing to send her gaze darting through the folds of darkness, searching for the vile creatures that seemed able to hone in on the healthy with an unknown sense. "We're not safe here," Ampere rushed her words, growing increasingly anxious the longer she stayed out here, especially grounded. Although she knew first hoof flight alone was not enough to escape the wraiths, it made her feel more at ease to be in her element.

"Sanctuary is safe, south. They can't follow. Her words became increasingly broken as an unearthly screech split the horizon somewhere around them. The sound had the eerie quality of seeming to be sourced from every direction at once, causing Ampere's head to spin around like she was part owl. She finally lost her nerve and exploded with feathers into the sky, the ground twitching with sparks where she'd been standing, her emotions running so taut her magic squeaked out unnoticed.

"Hurry!" she nearly begged the girl, for what ever reason the stranger's safety seeming to be just as important as her own. Maybe it was because they'd lost so many already that even one, even an unknown, mattered. "SOUTH!"

Ampere